Later that evening... on Quidditch Pitch

Headmaster Brockert

December 30, 2017 5:12 PM

Bonfire! by Headmaster Brockert

Today was the Midsummer Event. This year they were having the bonfire and...well, that was about the extent of it. The festivities this year more or less included a barbecue-though there was food there for any vegetarians amongst them , including barbecued tofu which sounded quite distgusting, along with the gluten-free and allergy crowd, if there were any students falling into those categories-and some circus performers for entertainment. The choir and the orchestra would also perform and then the students would be camping out in tents and generally hanging out around the fire, roasting s'mores.

So it wasn't the most organized event ever. But then, it was bloody hard to come up with ways to make every event different each time. As it was, Mortimer didn't know why they couldn't repeat the way something was done if all the students who'd done it the first time around had graduated. It would still be new to the current batch.

At least next year was just the Ball. As much as Mortimer did not enjoy them, he had to admit it was nice that they didn't have to come up with a way to make them different every time.

Now the students were gathered out on the Pitch. He placed the Sonorus Charm on himself and spoke. "Welcome to the Bonfire. Have a good time." There were no announcements to make so Mortimer stepped down and got in line for the barbecue. It wasn't steak but admittedly, he would enjoy it.

OOC- Please do not cause any serious incidents with the fire as the staff will be watching to prevent such things. Tents are any number you want with a minimum of two. Have fun!

Subthreads:

On a hunt [Tag Vlad] by Jehan Callahan with Vladimir Brockert

All by myself by Angelique Brockert with Ben Pierce

House Cup Winners by DH Skies with Lauren Song, Raine Collindale, Jozua Sparks

A good bonfire so far by Jasmine Delachene with Gary Harper

Later that evening... by Winston Pierce with Simon Mordue

End of an Era (tag Parker) by Cleo James with Parker Fitzgerald

A very important question (tag Jemima) by Owen Brockert with Jemima Wolseithcrafte

Can you handle this? by Georgia with Zevalyn

Waiting for poetry by Dorian Montoir with Tatiana Vorontsova

Time to say goodbye(Tag Sammy) by Kira Spaulding with Sammy Meeks

11 Headmaster Brockert Bonfire! 6 Headmaster Brockert 1 5

Jehan Callahan

January 02, 2018 12:19 PM

On a hunt [Tag Vlad] by Jehan Callahan

Jehan had been very excited about the idea of a bonfire. Sure, he’d had bonfires at home, mostly in the course of helping their gardener. Those had been fun, especially when Victor had joined in. Well, fun was perhaps not the best word there – Victor couldn’t exactly be trusted to behave in such a scenario, and it had often led to singed clothes, a hysterical mother, and the only time Victor was told to be more like Jehan. Ironically, Jehan wished to be braver in that way, like Victor.

But bonfires were wonderful things. Jehan could sit for hours, staring at the flames and the patterns they made. He would try and write poems in his head, but they could never measure up to the beauty that flickered and disappeared in front of his eyes. It was always so sad the next morning, when nothing remained but piles of cold grey ash.

This bonfire, though, this bonfire would be even better than usual. Jehan had come to the conclusion that being with Dorian made most things in life better than they were alone. It was so nice to finally have someone who understood him, someone who would be feeling just as he would. Victor just laughed as Jehan sat there staring, and dared him to stick his hand in. Dorian would, Jehan just knew, be as entranced as he would be.

Jehan hadn’t found Dorian before the Headmaster’s speech (if it was long enough to be called that; Jehan often wondered why the Headmaster didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to monologue), but he knew his friend would be around somewhere. As soon as they were released, he set off in search of Dorian, slightly hampered by his lack of height and the other people around him. Really, he needed a periscope.

He was making his way through the students when he thought he heard Dorian’s voice. Turning around to see if he could pick out the other boy, he accidentally walked backwards into someone.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he apologised, spinning back round to see that he’d walked into Vlad. He didn’t know Vlad that well, but he was Dorian’s roommate, and they seemed to get on. “Do you know where Dorian is?” he asked.

9 Jehan Callahan On a hunt [Tag Vlad] 1398 Jehan Callahan 0 5

Angelique Brockert

January 03, 2018 4:32 PM

All by myself by Angelique Brockert

Despite the fact that the choir was performing, Angelique was absolutely dreading the Bonfire. For one thing, she was not the sort who liked sleeping in a tent. More importantly though, she had really awful memories of the last one, how she'd been excluded. It had absolutely shattered her worldview.

The Crotalus had grown up expecting to come to school and have lots of friends. She expected nothing more than to meet girls from the right sort of family that she had tons in common with. She had been sorely disappointed. Instead Angelique didn't have a single friend here, only really having family members to socialize with. And Emerald and Owen had other friends. That was messed up, Emerald who was not even terribly interested in socializing much, seemed to be friendly if not amazingly close to her roommates. She also occasionally spent time with Kira and Kelsey whom she'd played with on occasion growing up.

She had the choir too. Granted, like half of them were first years. She did take some pride in half the first year class joining but it didn't really help her overall social life.

And Angelique did have friends outside of school but it wasn't quite the same. She was a Brockert and held the best balls but some of those friends went to the same schools and thus had to be closer to each other.

It wasn't as if she'd ever had much in common with the other girls in her year to start with but the thing was, she might have adapted and maybe even became friends with Raine or Nevaeh. Of course, Tess was the one who joined the choir, so Angelique did view her better that she might have otherwise.

And it might have been easier had the other girls besides herself-and Tasha-not become the best of friends. Now they were a little clique and she was alone. She hated it and resented them. Things were not supposed to be this way.

11 Angelique Brockert All by myself 332 Angelique Brockert 0 5

DH Skies

January 06, 2018 6:19 PM

House Cup Winners by DH Skies

After the bonfire had been in swing for about an hour - giving everyone time to chat to their friends and grab some food - Professor Skies took to the podium. She placed the sonorous charm on her voice, calling everyone to attention.

“I hope you are all enjoying the festivities,” she smiled, managing a good deal more sincerity to the sentiment than the headmaster usually achieved. “You can continue shortly, but first we would like to announce the winners of this year’s House Cup. And, in order to celebrate this victory, some of our visiting performers will be giving a workshop to the winning house.

“And so, with a total of one hundred and fifty seven points. Congratulations to…. Teppenpaw! May I have Professor Xavier and the Teppenpaw prefects on stage to collect the house cup?” she asked. The trophy would be entrusted to the head of the house, or sent up to the castle for the evening, but it was nice to include some of the students in its presentation.

“Members of Teppenpaw house, you may make your way into the roped off area behind the stage here to practise your circus skills.”

In the roped off area, several performers were waiting for the members of Teppenpaw house. A few were still entertaining the rest of Sonora with their fiery antics - juggling clubs, spinning poi, twirling flaming hoops. Those assisting with Teppenpaw house would be teaching the same skills, but without setting anything alight. Or, at least, that was what they had been instructed, quite firmly and repeatedly. And they had smiled, and nodded and promised. And they wouldn’t. At first. Not until anyone looked like they’d really got the hang of it. Or like they’d really like to try…

OOC - Congratulations Teppenpaw! You may write for the circus performers. Don’t die. Attract the attention of a professor if you start a fire. You may also post earlier or later parts of the evening if you wish your Teppenpaws to be mingling with others or doing something else.

13 DH Skies House Cup Winners 26 DH Skies 0 5

Lauren Song

January 06, 2018 9:13 PM

Trying a balancing act by Lauren Song

It felt a little too sad admitting that Lauren had spent the last day of final exams crying in her room. She was way more sentimental than she thought. Taking down the decorations in her room almost felt like she was giving something up or finally facing the truth: it was time to grow up. She still didn't know what in the world she wanted to do with her life and it kind of scared her. For the short-term, she had agreed to visit her dad in Korea and spend the summer with him to see how she liked it there. If things went well, then maybe she would end up working their or something for a year. But, if she was really being honest, she didn't want to do that. She wanted to find a job back in California and figure out what she really wanted to do.

Being this indecisive was annoying and she had written her mom really long letters complaining about it and ranting about different interests, but none of it really seemed to help. Her mom wasn't all that sympathetic either since she had wanted to study medicine ever since she was a teenager. Lauren had talked to her roommates about it too, and she hoped maybe they would give her insight over the next year as they exchanged letters about what they were up to. Maybe she could travel for the next year, if she felt brave enough to do it on her own.

The bonfire was a bittersweet Midsummer event. It was her second favorite, after the ball, but it reminded her of being so young and innocent at Sonora. There wasn't that much going on this time, just a few circus performers. Lauren went to the barbecue and ate a lot. If it was going to be her last meal here, besides breakfast tomorrow, she was going to take advantage of it. She couldn't wait to make s'mores later tonight.

It felt like about an hour when DH Skies announced that Teppenpaw had won the House Cup. Lauren squealed and jumped up. Looking for her roommates, she joined others in the roped off area. Her eyes widened at all of their equipment. Doing a safe activity first sounded like a good idea. Glancing at her roommates, hoping they would join her, she decided to try the unicycle. It looked super cool when the performers used it and juggled at the same time.

"Can you show me how to ride that?" she asked a guy in colorful tights, and he nodded. There was no wall to hold herself against, so the guy held her hand as she mounted the unicycle. It felt shaky and she fell right over.

"It takes practice balancing first," the circus performer said and Lauren nodded, rubbing her sore knee. "Just hold onto me and balance first. Once you get it it's a piece of cake."

Lauren tried again, feeling shaky. This was definitely harder than it looked. "It's super cool," she said, smiling. "At least, it looks super cool. If I learn how to ride today, I'm going to have to buy a unicycle when I go home." Maybe joining the circus could be another option--a really farfetched one, but an option nonetheless.

19 Lauren Song Trying a balancing act 303 Lauren Song 0 5

Raine Collindale

January 08, 2018 5:05 AM

A familiar face by Raine Collindale

She was still alive. And the CATS were over. Professor Xavier had helped her believe that all was not lost, and she had gone into a couple of the exams with a clearer head than others, but she still wasn’t sure… For now, Raine felt that the best thing she could do was put it out of her mind. And that was actually surprisingly easy… Yes, it was easy to dread the results, but right now there was such sheer relief that it was over that she felt like dancing. And she did. When she first got to the fire, she went and basked in its warmth, spinning in circles and grinning, not really caring what anyone thought of her.

She knew that some members of her family were here, providing the circus entertainment, but she didn’t seek them out at first. She would see them lots over the summer, and for now she was happy just being in her own head - it was a while since that had been such a comfortable place to be - or with talking to her friends. However, when DH Skies announced that Teppenpaw had won the house cup, she went with her housemates - partly because, in spite of the word ‘may,’ it coming from the deputy headmistress made it feel like a direct instruction, and partly because she wanted to see if she recognised any faces who were helping out.

“Starr!” she beamed, breaking out of the group of Teppenpaws to run forward towards a young man, a head shorter than some of the taller seventh years with a short black ponytail. He dropped the juggling clubs he’d been holding in order to lift her off her feet in an enthusiastic hug.

“Hey there, Raindrop,” he smiled, kissing her on the cheek. Setting her down again, he asked. “Where’s Kyte?”

“Different house. Hasn’t earned the honour of your company,” she grinned.

“Ah, yes. Your school’s weird tribal b-s.”

“Come meet my friends. Well, some of them aren’t in my house either but…” she took his hand, pulling him over to a familiar face.

“This is Starr,” she introduced him. “He’s my brother, and he can juggle real good” she explained, telling Starr the chosen housemate’s name in return.

13 Raine Collindale A familiar face 327 Raine Collindale 0 5

Ginger Pierce

January 08, 2018 10:20 PM

I'm off to join the circus! by Ginger Pierce

The Teppenpaw Seventh Year Girls' room was looking like a barren shadow of itself with most of the decorations taken down and all of their things packed up and ready to go home tomorrow. Ginger was more than a little relieved that she was ending her Sonora years with the Bonfire because she probably would have had to cry herself to sleep in the shell of what had, until now, been their home of seven years. The tents tonight were better, a nice clean transition, even, since Ginger regularly slept in muggle tents at home. These were at least magical tents, so it was a more gradual step down from what she normally encountered upon her return from school.

She'd spent the first hour sampling some of the vegetarian options of the barbecue (she herself wasn't strictly vegan like many of her family but she'd been cutting back on the meat and dairy over the last few weeks, so she wouldn't miss it so much once she returned home) and watching the circus performers. When Deputy Headmistress Skies called their attention, Ginger was pleased to hear it was her house that had won the House Cup, and she cheered loudly as Professor Xavier and the prefects went to collect the trophy.

Ginger joined the rest of her Housemates in going 'backstage' - in as much as the Bonfire had one - to get circus lessons. She figured she had a step up in that respect over all of her fellow Teppenpaws but Raine. She gave Lauren a grin and a thumbs up as she saw her roommate trying out a unicycle, but she headed over for the jugglers. It wasn't that she was trying to show off, but, well, she was good at juggling and she didn't often have the chance to use that skill at Sonora.

"I'm a California Pierce," she told the circus performer with the juggling clubs, grinning in eager anticipation. "Challenge me. My name's Ginger." The Matriarch's daughter, she didn't say, but suspected they might know that already.

California Pierce or not, he started her on a basic two-person club rotation, but as she proved she could handle that, he mixed it up and threw in more and more difficult tricks. Ginger dropped a couple of the more difficult passes, but she caught most of them, and after a few tries, she usually picked up the tricks she didn't already recognize from the Renaissance Faire circuit.

"Wanna try fire?" the juggler asked after a while, and Ginger had gotten down the new passes he had to teach. His eyes twinkled with mischief, and Ginger was pretty sure he probably wasn't supposed to be offering that, but she was a California Pierce, and she had juggled fire before, so surely exceptions could be made, right? After all, it was the Bonfire. Fire was the theme of the day.

"Sure," she agreed.

He lit six torches and the two of them juggled them back and forth between them, keeping now to the simplest and safest of passes. But they were juggling fire so the term 'safest' was relative at best. Ginger bit her lip in concentration and felt sweat beading on her forehead as pass after pass completed just exactly right. Then, on the eighth catch, she was just a little off; she caught it, but her grip was wrong. She dropped it into the pail of water beside her instead of trying to pass it on. The circus juggler, of course, saw what was happening, and dunked his into his pail as well as if they had planned it, and they each caught the remaining four as they arrived and took showy fiery bows to anyone watching, both seasoned enough performers to adjust their bows to mimic each other as if they'd rehearsed it all before, then finally dousing the flames of the last two torches.

"Nice, thank you," Ginger thanked him, shaking his hand. "That was fun."

"Thank you for not trying to throw with that grip," he grinned back.

"No, no," she assured, smiling back, "I've only got a few hours left at Sonora, I didn't want to get expelled for burning a school guest before I officially graduate." He laughed merrily and went on to help another Teppenpaw learn to juggle. Ginger headed back over to where she'd seen Lauren trying to ride a unicycle, hoping to see if her roommate had made any progress or moved on to something else in the meantime.

1 Ginger Pierce I'm off to join the circus! 302 Ginger Pierce 0 5

Jasmine Delachene

January 09, 2018 11:20 AM

A good bonfire so far by Jasmine Delachene

Jasmine was willing to give the bonfire the benefit of the doubt. Mom said it was the least interesting of the midsummer events, but Jasmine was still a first year and had no other midsummer events to compare it to, so maybe that would give it a boost, it being her first one.

While sleeping in a tent maybe wouldn’t top her list of Must Do activities, she wasn’t entirely against it, especially since she had been assured they were magical tents, so that barely even counted as roughing it. Plus, Jasmine had always enjoyed sitting out on the range, singing and telling stories around a campfire, and toasting marshmallows, so it couldn’t be too bad, right? A bonfire was just like a really big campfire, wasn’t it?

A really really big campfire, she saw when she got outside that day, wearing her cowboy boots and her best designer cowgirl chic outfit that she wouldn’t actually wear out to be the real cowgirl she was, but would look good out in a semi outdoorsy setting like this which didn’t involve horse poop. She even had a pink cowgirl hat on to complete the look. That it also shaded her face and eyes from the summer sun was a lucky bonus she hadn’t really considered when she put it on, but was grateful for now that she was out here.

She munched on some barbecue food, and watched the circus folks, and was disappointed Crotalus didn’t win the House Cup (though not too surprised since they had been ahead of only Aladren the last time she checked the totals kept by that arithmancy portrait guy, whassisname, Minns or Tims or whatever).

She took advantage of the thinning crowds as the Teppenpaws got to go for special circus training by going get more food while the lines were shorter. Shorter, but not completely gone. She found herself standing behind someone she knew as they waited their turn to get to the food tables, “Hi! Are you having a good bonfire so far?”

1 Jasmine Delachene A good bonfire so far 1397 Jasmine Delachene 0 5

Lauren

January 09, 2018 7:14 PM

Goodbye, world as we know it! by Lauren

Lauren waved as Ginger passed, but she quickly focused on balancing again. Her arms were out, one holding onto the performer and the other flailing in an attempt to stay upright.

"Moving might help," he said, sounding amused, and she slowly started to cycle. "I've got you, don't worry." He was strong and Lauren felt a little braver as she pressed on. Once she found her balance, it actually wasn't that hard. Soon she let go of the performer and he released her. She was doing it on her own! Lauren laughed and looked over where Ginger was. Her roommate was had started juggling and Lauren was pretty impressed.

She felt wobbly turning, but holding her arms out helped and Lauren couldn't stop smiling. This was so cool. She looked out to see if she could spot her brother in the crowd, but no luck. Lauren did another few turns and then hopped off the unicycle. "How do I get on it by myself?" she asked.

"You either get a kick-off start or you can mount it while holding onto a wall. Since you're just beginning, it'll be easier to use the wall. For now you can just hold onto me." The performer held out his arm again and Lauren used it to get herself on and cycle once again. Joining the circus didn't seem so terrible, except that she wasn't the biggest fan of being on stage and having everyone stare at her. She looked back over at Ginger who was doing some crazier stuff and Lauren watched her while she cycled in big circles.

"Whoa! Go Ginger!" she exclaimed as her roommate started juggling fire.

When Ginger extinguished her flame and headed over to her, Lauren cycled towards her to meet her halfway. "That was so cool!" she gushed as she hopped off the unicycle. "I didn't know you could juggle that well! That was awesome. I think you're the only person I know who can juggle like that. And now I'm the only person I know who can unicycle." Lauren smiled proudly. "It's so fun. I'm going to have to see if my mom will buy me one when I get back. Do you want to try it out?"

19 Lauren Goodbye, world as we know it! 303 Lauren 0 5

Ben Pierce

January 10, 2018 1:06 PM

Not anymore by Ben Pierce

Ben was really glad his CATS were over. After three years of hearing about them in the majority of his classes almost every day, especially after midterm, he didn’t think the tests had really been as horrible as everyone made them out to be. Of course, he’d been doing his best to understand and condense the material from every subject down into its easiest to digest morsels for the better part of two years, trying to help Kyte pass, so that might have had something to do with his own fine showing, because translating from text-book speak to Kyte-speak was kind of like, um, well you had to think about it pretty hard.

At any rate, he was pleased with how he’d done, and when the grades came hime by owl this summer, he was pretty sure even Mom would be proud of him. He didn’t want to jinx it by saying so out loud, but he thought there might even be a couple Os.

He just hoped he’d done a good enough job of pounding information into Kyte’s head that his roommate managed a couple As, just enough to pass up into sixth year with Ben.

But just this very minute, Ben didn’t really need to be hanging out with Kyte. Kyte was probably catching up with his circus family anyway (who Ben had already met a good chunk of last summer so Kyte shouldn’t need to make any introductions to him), and Ben would see him later as they’d presumably have a tent together. Tess was also hanging out with her other friends, leaving Ben a bit at loose ends.

As he wandered about, he saw he wasn’t the only one with this problem, and he fell into step beside Angelique Brockert, who he recognized from her being in the grade as himself, but with being in different houses and different clubs, they’d never really connected much. “Hi,” he greeted cheerfully, his steps light and bouncy with the weight of the CATS so recently lifted from him. “It’s a great day, isn’t it?” he enthused. “Beautiful weather, CATS are over, there’s people juggling fire, and your choir will be singing later, right? You sounded really good at the concert last year! Oh! You’re not not mentally preparing for that, are you? Am I interrupting?”

1 Ben Pierce Not anymore 339 Ben Pierce 0 5

Winston Pierce

January 10, 2018 4:06 PM

Later that evening... by Winston Pierce

It had been hours since Teppenpaw had been announced as the winners of the House Cup. Winston had already eaten his fire roasted dinner - he would had preferred having a table to eat it on, but it had tasted well enough - and now it was getting on towards evening. Summer solstice wasn’t very far away, so the sun still hung too high in the sky to really consider turning in yet, but Winston was starting to think ahead to that point. He had assumed up until this moment that he would share a tent with Simon and Victor as they were used to each other and got along quite well, but it suddenly occurred to him - as a marshmallow slowly turned golden brown on a stick he was holding near the fire - that they hadn’t formally agreed to any such arrangement and they may not have the same assumptions he did.

He impatiently awaited his marshmallow to finish toasting even as his eyes darted about searching for his roommates, or any other potential tent cohabitants.

When the marshmallow was down, he blew on it a few times then gingerly removed it from the stick and passed the stick on to the next person who looked like they might be needing one. Who - quite by lucky chance happened to be one of the people he’d just been looking for!

“Oh,” he said with a bit of surprise color his voice, “There you are! I was just going to go looking for you. Did you want to share a tent tonight?”

He popped his marshmallow into his mouth and hoped he wouldn’t be required to immediately answer any questions.

1 Winston Pierce Later that evening... 370 Winston Pierce 0 5

Gary Harper

January 10, 2018 5:34 PM

What could make it better? by Gary Harper

Gary strolled out to the bonfire with a mixture of interest and trepidation. He'd never been much of an outdoors type person in practice, although he'd had plenty of practice in theory and simulation. As he made his way towards the giant fire on the Pitch, he recalled the one time he had been camping. It had been before his mother had died, they went as a family for a weekend, 'just for the experience' his parents had said. What an experience. From the weather, to the equipment, the food and the wildlife... everything had turned against them. They had wound up soaked to the bone, shivering, stomachs growling and huddling together in the car as everything on their camp that hadn't been stolen by critters was slowly washing away in the rain. It had been miserable. Yet, Gary found himself smiling at the memory as he walked. It had turned Dad off to the idea of anything outside for an extended period of time, so they never tried again. Then Mom died and... He shook himself out of that state of mind, it would do no good, that much he had figured out.

At the bonfire itself, he got food and watched the performers. They were actually quite good, were they all witches and wizards as well? They would almost have to be in order to perform here, right? Wizards deciding to be circus performers... something about that just seemed odd to him. However, it also made a certain amount of sense as he thought about it. If they could use their abilities subtly enough, they could be quite the performer. He wondered briefly how many stage magicians were actually wizards or witches.

He was back at the end of the food line as the announcement was made about the cup. He applauded for the Teppenpaws and realized they may figure out if the performers were actual magic users. Maybe he'd have to find one of them and ask after the party. The food line started moving again and he turned to follow it, a moment later a familiar voice sounded over his shoulder. He turned to see Jasmine all decked out like an official cowgirl. He instantly felt a little out of place in his jeans, t-shirt and open school robe. He smiled though and returned the greeting.

"Hello. Yeah, so far it's far better than my last official 'outdoor fire and tents' type experience." He grinned, "How about you? Having fun? You're certainly dressed for the occasion, I take it you've done this before?"

2 Gary Harper What could make it better? 1404 Gary Harper 0 5

Ginger Pierce

January 11, 2018 9:49 AM

I may need to switch to a broom to make my escape! by Ginger Pierce

“Look at you!” Ginger enthused in delight as she saw Lauren unicycling over to her. “Wow! You learned that fast!” She grinned, feeling pretty pleased that Lauren had seen at least some of her juggling even as she’d been learning to ride the unicycle. “Come to my Rennfaire sometime,” she encourage, not for the first time, “We’ll have you juggling, too, in no time.” She grinned teasingly, “Probably not with fire, though.”

She considered the unicycle doubtfully. Unlike juggling, that was something she hadn’t really ever done before. One of her cousins had a special one for using on a tight rope, but she’d never used that either. “Well, you never gain anything by not trying,” she declared philosophically. “You can give me tips from one beginner to another.”

She leaned in closer and whispered with a smile, “And your teacher’s not too bad on the eyes, either, is he?” He was no Jake, but for a fun afternoon of flirting that would likely never go anywhere, there were certainly worse options.

Aloud, and directed at Lauren’s unicycle teacher, she asked, “Is there another one, so we can go at the same time?”

“Sure,” he confirmed, pointing over to a small collection of them. “Right over there. Bring one over.”

She did and he helped her up onto it and she wobbled like a newborn giraffe trying to stand for the first time. “Whoa!” she gasped, flailing her arms about trying to stay upright, but needing the circus guy to grab her to keep from toppling over. “You’ve got good balance, Lauren!”

1 Ginger Pierce I may need to switch to a broom to make my escape! 302 Ginger Pierce 0 5

Jasmine

January 11, 2018 12:09 PM

Horses. Horses would make it much better. by Jasmine

Jasmine beamed as Gary complimented her outfit (or at least, she chose to take it as a compliment; he’d mentioned it anyway, and not in a bad way, so that must mean he liked it). “Not exactly,” she admitted to his question about whether she’d done this sort of thing before. She must at least look competent if he asked, so she was taking that as a compliment, too.

“I mean, my family owns a flying horse ranch in California, so we sometimes have late nights out on the range with a campfire and songs and stories - my sister calls those our Old West Nights, she loves them! - but the fire is usually a lot smaller and there are winged horses about instead of circus performers.” She smiled in fond memory of her horses. She couldn’t wait to go home tomorrow and see them again! It had been so long since she was last in a saddle. “We do stay overnight in a magical tent though.”

Jasmine wasn’t entirely convinced such nocturnal excursions were strictly necessary from a horse raising perspective, but Mom insisted that was what happened on horse ranch television shows, and they were going to get horse ranching right, and do it like the TV said, so they did. It was fun, anyway, and a good family time with all five of them, plus the horses, so nobody was complaining that it didn’t exactly serve any practical purpose. And their magical tent was comfortable enough that as long as it was only one night at a time, Jasmine didn’t even miss her regular bed that much. Mom was at least as much a princess as Jasmine herself, so there was no real chance of needing to actually rough it anywhere.

“I’m guessing there weren’t too many circus performers at your ill fated outdoor fire and tents experience either?” she guessed, smiling.

1 Jasmine Horses. Horses would make it much better. 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Cleo James

January 11, 2018 1:30 PM

End of an Era (tag Parker) by Cleo James

Cleo hung back from the fire. She hadn’t massively been looking forward to it… Fire wasn’t really fun or warming to her, it was just a little intimidating, given her incendiary tendencies with accidental magic. She’d liked the concert they’d done last year, even though she hadn’t done anything except watch. And she was sure someone had said that next year would be a ball… That sounded like a lot of fun. Dressing up, dancing. Maybe a boy would ask her to be his date… She wasn’t particularly enamoured of the idea of kissing boys or anything like that, but being someone’s date sounded fun because it was sort of princessy and romantic.

The headmaster did little more than announce the fact that they were at the fire (well, duh) and that they should have a good time. She thought she might well, even if she would need a little bit of encouragement to get any closer to the actual fire part of the bonfire. There were other things to do, like eat, and hang out with friends. And now she actually had one, other than Professor Xavier (whom her daddy seemed to think she shouldn’t really count or hang about with so much). This year had been a lot of fun, and she was up for celebrating its existence. She stood on her tiptoes, looking for the person who had been a big part of that. When she spotted him, she bounded over, linking her arm through his.

“Hey Parker,” she grinned, “Let’s eat, yeah?” she asked, already towing him towards the food tables.

“This year was fun,” she grinned happily. “But it went waaaay too fast. It’s crazy to think that next year we’ll be intermedi- oh,” she stopped, crestfallen as she suddenly remembered. Parker was a first year. “We won’t have classes together next year!” she wailed. “But we’ll still see each other all the time, right? We can eat together. And explore the gardens more. And we’ll see each other at gardening club too - next year I’ll run it much better, and if I don’t you have to nag me, ok?” she asked. She’d managed to get going with the club a little bit but she wanted to do it properly next year, to take advantage of all the different planting seasons and make their area really special. And she wanted to make sure she made plenty of opportunities to spend time with her friend, and that he wouldn’t forget her once she moved into a different class.

13 Cleo James End of an Era (tag Parker) 389 Cleo James 0 5

Joe Umland

January 11, 2018 3:31 PM

A familiar face and an unfamiliar face. by Joe Umland

Someone had given Julian a dictation quill. Joe had not done it, had not spoken to anyone who had owned to doing so, but he felt utterly comfortable asserting that it had been done.

Joe!

Tell any of your little friends you want to write to this summer not to expect you to reply too swift - it took some betwixt with the One Between Us, because he thought about going to some summer classes, but he listened to reason in the end finally and now we’re all going away together me and you and Mom and Dad and the Other One - the Big Pair won’t do what I tell them to, but you Little Ones will, and Mom and Dad, because it’s Mom’s birthday and she’ll like it even if William is coming alon - damn! (Sorry, I tripped on a cat).

Anyway, we’re all along and you, of course, don’t have a choice because you are the littler half of the Little Pair and not old enough to argue yet (though I guess you could stay with Paul and Stephen, but you’ll have a better time with us and anyway, you can help me with John). Try to do good on your RATS so Mom and John don’t scold you about them while we’re on vacation - ow! (sorry, I slipped peeling these apples) (finished peeling the apples).

The letter had rattled on for some distance more, which made it fortunate that Julian had mentioned the point early on in the missive: she had decided to haul the family abroad, through both England and France, for much of the summer as a joint celebration of her first anniversary and Mom’s impending forty-fifth birthday. Joe did not yet know what to think about this. On one hand, he kind of went abroad every year, but on the other hand, that wasn’t for pleasure. It was different from going abroad-abroad; he was a bit embarrassed about the sheer luxury of the thing as much as anxious about the prospect of his family being together at close quarters without anywhere novel to go, despite also looking forward to the various attractions Julian had rambled about in between tripping over cats and peeling the apples (and, apparently, her own fingers). He assumed Julian had been joking about him being scolded about CATS all summer, but it had been enough to make him a bit more stressed when he went to take his CATS. Julian and Dad would understand normal scores. Mom and John...wouldn’t. At best they would be confused and at worst disappointed, and after the time he’d watched Raine have all year, he thought he might yell at them if it came to that….

Overall, it was lucky, he thought, that CATS results wouldn’t come back until the end of the summer. With any luck, that would even mean John was back in America before the results came back. Joe was basically okay as long as the result was all Es and Os - Julian had conveniently had an A on hers, which absolved him from the need for perfection - but if John and Mom’s formidable forces were divided, it would be much easier to get away with it un-shamed if there happened to be more Es than Os, which was what he expected the results to be. His spellwork had been good, he’d even been complimented once, but his knowledge of theory was limited to what was in the book and he didn’t even always remember that perfectly.

Next year, though, things got even more complicated. Important decisions would be made. That was not fun. For now, Joe really wanted to relax, only he still sort of felt...adrift, out of sorts, for lack of Work. The CATS were no longer hanging over his head. He was slightly anxious about the upcoming abroadness, but not enough to take the place of CATS stress. It was weird.

Winning the House cup at least meant something extra to do with himself for the evening, so Joe followed the other Teppenpaws toward the performers. To his surprise, though, someone abruptly broke away from the group and ran toward one of them. To his even greater surprise, the person jumping all over a performer was Raine.

To his greater surprise for a moment, anyway – then he remembered that she was from a carnival family. That was ostensibly why she had been…contorting herself in interesting ways that evening in the sports room that evening, which he had analyzed a hundred times since it happened – she had been practicing for an act. She probably knew the performer…possibly very well, from the enthusiasm with which they greeted each other.

He was not sure how he felt about that, but he was aware that it was none of his business, and so he was just about to try to fade into the background when abruptly, Raine dragged the performer over to him and introduced him as her brother.

“Hello,” said Joe, surprised, offering Starr his hand. “Nice to meet you – I’m Joe Umland, and I’m in Raine’s year and don’t juggle very well at all.”

16 Joe Umland A familiar face and an unfamiliar face. 329 Joe Umland 0 5

Owen Brockert

January 11, 2018 5:34 PM

A very important question (tag Jemima) by Owen Brockert

Owen felt anxious as he stood on the pitch. More anxious than he really ever had, even more than he had about RATS or all the changes inherent with graduating and impending adulthood.

This was, after all, more important than anything else. What happened tonight, her response, would impact Owen's future more than anything else ever could. It was no surprise that he was quite nervous.

Uncle Mortimer finished talking and Owen turned to Jemima and said "You know, four years ago tonight, we became a couple and the bonfire is really special to me because of that." While Angelique had thought of the bonfire as a time when she'd been excluded, the Teppenpaw had significantly more positive ones. That-along with the practical consideration that it was their last night at Sonora-was why he was doing this here and now instead of over midterm.

Owen dropped to one knee and pulled a box out of his pocket, his hands shaking a little. "Jemima, you're so special to me and I love you so much. I want us to be together forever. Will you marry me?"

He waited with baited breath for her answer, not being able to quite keep from remembering what Theodore said about him holding her back.

11 Owen Brockert A very important question (tag Jemima) 300 Owen Brockert 0 5

Simon Mordue

January 11, 2018 7:53 PM

...I'm to have some new experiences, apparently. by Simon Mordue

Another year was gone, or near enough. A peaceful year, relatively speaking – something that Simon was not displeased about. He could have wished for Crotalus to lose the House Cup by a slightly smaller margin, but after last year and with the prospect of next year, he was prepared to accept even the slightly embarrassing situation that stood.

Next year…well, for him, in many ways, nothing would change. Intermediates was a three-year class, so he would still be in the same rooms and with more of the same people than not, just as one of the people in the middle of the group instead of one of the people at the bottom of same. Lessons would involve some new considerations, as fourth years often had their own choice of assignments, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. No, the reason that next year was a bit of an intimidating prospect, and why he was glad that this year had been peaceful so far, was nothing to do with Simon himself. It was to do with his little sister and the less little of his two little cousins, both of whom were due to present themselves at school.

Simon loved his sister, of course – Sylvia was lovely and dear and everyone adored her. He also loved Nathaniel, he supposed, as he was obliged to do so – they all pretended that Nathaniel’s father was dead now, more or less, but when he had still existed, he had been Father’s brother and that was important, especially since Simon had no brothers of his own. Nathaniel was also a perfectly pleasant person most of the time. He could not, however, say he was happy about the prospect of them being here. For one thing, Nathaniel being around might remind people of the scandal when Uncle Nicky left the family, which could not help Simon socially, and plus…Sonora was his place. He didn’t have to worry about setting a perfect example, he didn’t have to feel perpetually slightly jealous of the bond between those two and how he was always a bit left out – none of that. Now, though, it would be Sylvia’s, as everything – everything, anyway, except being next in line after Father – was Sylvia’s if she wanted it, and in no time at all, everyone would look at him and simply see “Sylvia Mordue’s brother.” And he’d have to look out for her more than ever, too, with boys who weren’t their cousins around – except he’d leave school just when most of them were starting to consider courtships, and that would be dreadful, he’d have to worry about her all the time….

All things considered, it would be better if Sylvia and Nathaniel just stayed at home, but they weren’t going to and that was that and he knew he ought to get on with it. Unfortunately, since Crotalus had lost the House cup, there wasn’t much for him to do except wander around. So he did that. Seeing Winston, he went to join his roommate and was mildly surprised for a moment to be handed a stick until he realized – marshmallows. This was one of those things he thought he must have heard about somewhere, but never done. It looked simple enough….

That his presence was considered desirable was not entirely an unwelcome revelation, and he nodded as he speared a marshmallow on the stick. “I was assuming we all would,” he said, gesturing vaguely to include Victor in this summation even though Victor wasn’t immediately in evidence. “But there’s us, anyway. Is it a rule saying four instead of three, or just a suggestion?” He hoped it was not a rule, but supposed the three of them would more than leave him on the right side of any remotely reasonable number. “And have you ever slept in a tent before?” he added as an afterthought. He, personally, had not, but was imagining something similar to Sylvia and Nathaniel’s treehouse, only less…solid.

16 Simon Mordue ...I'm to have some new experiences, apparently. 369 Simon Mordue 0 5

Gary

January 11, 2018 9:02 PM

Is there anything they wouldn't improve? by Gary

Gary had started moving food from the table onto his plate as the line moved on its way. With his attention split between listening to Jasmine and the table, he wasn't sure he had caught her statement quite right. "You live on a ranch filled with Pegasi?" He stared for a moment in awe. Naturally he'd read about them a little in the library while he was comparing real magical creatures to their fictional counterparts as presented in his monster manuals and bestiaries. He had been, and still was contemplating compiling his own version of just such a manual. The books that he'd encountered so far about creatures had been either scattered and seemingly random or extremely verbose and dull. If he could distill the essence of each of the creatures down into a condensed stat block while a paragraph or two of text, it would greatly enhance his studies in Care of Magical Creatures. Also, once he had that he could...

Suddenly he realized his mind had started drifting again, and Jasmine was just standing there. He shook his head quick to clear it and grinned. "Sorry about that. What's it like living on a ranch like that? It must be amazing. I live on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs." He thought for a moment, recalling that rainy weekend again. "No, but Dad did have some not very nice things to say about the clowns they had predicting the weather for that weekend as we watched the tent float away."

2 Gary Is there anything they wouldn't improve? 1404 Gary 0 5

Jasmine

January 11, 2018 10:06 PM

No, no there isn't. by Jasmine

"Sure," Jasmine responded, as if living on a ranch with pegasi were the most normal thing in the world. To her, it was. She did know, however, that most people did not, but that was their loss. The world, she though, would be a much nicer place if everyone on it had a flying horse. Or any horse, really. Mom had done well enough with just a normal white mare when she was young, and really, nobody could go wrong with a unicorn about.

She gave Gary a look of horrified disbelief as he off-handedly mentioned that his previous tenting experience had involved enough rain that it floated his tent away. "Seriously?" she asked incredulous. She'd seen some rainy days here at Sonora to boggled her mind, but for a tent to just up and float away . . . "Wow. I mean, I live in an actual desert - not like Sonora here which is technically in one, but magically has the climate of Ireland - so I know my idea of a lot of rain is different than most people's, but, wow."

"But yeah, the ranch is great," she enthused as she picked up a plate and began piling it with some tasty looking samples, not taking very much of any one thing, but getting a wide variety of the different options available. "Like I said, it's desert territory, so it's pretty dry and brown, but there's lots of space and not any neighbors close by, so we can fly pretty freely without worrying about muggles seeing us. Which is important, because nobody's going to miss a flying elephant, which is about as big as our Abraxans can get, and they need a lot of exercise."

1 Jasmine No, no there isn't. 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Winston

January 11, 2018 10:21 PM

You and me both by Winston

"Oh, good," Winston breathed out when he had finished savoring and swallowing his toasted marshmallow. He did enjoy eating those, even if they were impossibly messy sometimes. "I was thinking that, too. I'm glad we're on the same page. Hopefully that means Victor is, too."

He looked doubtfully at his fingers, which were distressingly sticky now. He could use his wand to magic them clean, but in so doing, he'd probably get his wand sticky . . . Washing them manually might be the best option, but he wasn't sure if there was anywhere closer than the bathrooms inside the school for doing that. Well, he supposed he and Simon could go in together once Simon had finished his marshmallow and found himself in similar straits.

"No," he denied when Simon asked if he'd ever tented before. "I live on a mountain," he added. "That's wilderness enough for my family, and when it gets dark, we just go inside. But I'm pretty sure the number four was just a suggestion. I heard someone saying that the tents just get bigger or smaller depending on how many people you have. You just need at least two, which we've got now, if Victor made other plans. What about you? Have you stayed in a tent before?"

1 Winston You and me both 370 Winston 0 5

Georgia

January 12, 2018 8:05 AM

Can you handle this? by Georgia

The fire was going… strangely well. Midsummer events kind of had this way of being really stressful for her somehow. The fair, she’d done her best to get involved but had been in a super Aladren-y group for what amounted to a research project and had felt super dumb the whole time. The ball…. She was just going to pretend that had basically never happened. Last year’s concert, which seemed like the most stressful on paper, had actually been kind of ok, cos she’d just volunteered to help out with baking, which meant she wasn’t on stage, although her dad had been a bit disappointed that she hadn’t done anything, and had urged her to join the choir this year. She’d done that, safe in the knowledge that the next concert was four years away, and had kind of had funish with it, until Angelique had announced they’d be singing at the bonfire. Georgia wasn’t super comfortable with the thought of getting up on stage in front of all the school, but didn’t think she could weasel out of it, and could only hope they were mostly going to not be paying that much attention. It wasn’t that she had stage fright, per se, she knew she could sing ok, she was just embarrassed in case people thought it was lame, or thought she looked fat and stupid - she just wasn’t really much of a ‘look at me’ kind of person.

She had found comfort over the impending social awkwardness in chilli and chips, nibbling to calm her nerves and distract herself. Before the choir performed though, she got given a distraction in the form of Teppenpaw winning the house cup. She was super pleased for them, though as a solidly average student, she wasn’t sure how much she personally had contributed. Still, it had been fun to hang out with the circus performers. She’d tried a hula hoop out, as it was the most familiar item, and the girl with her had got Georgia keeping it spinning around for far longer than she’d ever managed as a child, thanks in part to the proper weighted circus hoop which was much easier to work with than ‘that plastic crud they sell to kids,’ as the performer had put it, and also the girl’s directions to ‘work that booty, honey’ which had actually made her feel kind of cool, and not like she was just a fat idiot trying to spin a hoop. She had booty to work. That sounded much better. She’d also learnt a couple of other ways to move the hoop around and twirl it with different parts of her body.

She’d ridden the high of doing well there onto stage with the choir, and it had been nowhere near as terrifying as she’d thought it would be. Post-choir, she returned to the food table, helping herself to a hot dog and a cheesy baked potato. She speared some marshmallows and made her way towards the fire. She sat down by the edge of it, so she could eat her food and then toast her dessert.

“Hi,” she grinned, at someone nearby, “This is all pretty fun, isn’t it?”

13 Georgia Can you handle this? 346 Georgia 0 5

Jemima Wolseithcrafte

January 13, 2018 11:08 AM

This is a lot like last time by Jemima Wolseithcrafte

Jemima felt strangely light and carefree as she made her way down to the bonfire, hand in hand with Owen. They’d got through the exams - she hadn’t really expected not to - and they had a reasonable plan for next year. For a lot of their lives, actually. Even though they were teetering on the edge of adulthood, it didn’t really feel scary. It was going to be time to do the things they’d talked about for years… To go on adventures, to be with each other, to publish books.

You know, four years ago tonight, we became a couple and the bonfire is really special to me because of that.

“Me too,” Jemima smiled. She too had been thinking about their first bonfire. The little plate of food she’d made up from the table for them, with two forks stuck in the jacket potato, and the discovery that the school had voted them one of the ‘best couples’ in the yearbook even though they hadn’t actually officially said anything to each other. But they’d already behaved as if they were, sharing food being just one example of that… She was about to go off on a trip down memory lane, but it seemed that Owen wasn’t quite done yet.

It took her a second to twig what was happening. She had sort of been expecting this in some form and had daydreamed several elaborate ways for Owen to propose to her. But now he was just… asking her. At the bonfire. Because it was special. Which meant that he’d caught her completely off guard, and still managed to surprise her. And it was perfect.

“Of course I want to marry you!” she beamed, holding out her hand so he could put the ring on her finger. “I’ve always wanted to marry you. You’re my soulmate.”

13 Jemima Wolseithcrafte This is a lot like last time 304 Jemima Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Dorian Montoir

January 13, 2018 12:17 PM

Waiting for poetry by Dorian Montoir

Dorian was rather looking forward to the fire. It sounded like quite a lot of fun, and they got to camp out and share tents with people who weren’t their room-mates - though he had no objections to including his, as Vlad was very nice, but he was excited about the possibility of sharing with Jehan. He was trying to focus on that and not the fact that it hailed the start of a long summer of separation. He was looking forward to seeing his parents and his sister again, but he was not looking forward to sharing a roof with his brother and losing his best-friend.

Still, tonight was not the time to dwell on that. Tonight was a night of celebration. He had dug through the poetry books in the library until he’d found something suitable for the occasion.

Most charming bluebell flames that fall from wands,
With gentle warmth that widely doth appeal,
Might warm my hands but leaves my spirit cold,
Played like a toy; so safe, so tame, unreal.

But not to fiendfyre's excess do I tend,
The raging, thrashing chaos that can sprout
And spread like lovers' quarrels, far too hot
'Til all's consumed and ev'rything burnt out

Just take the time to build a real fire.
It can be worth the risk of getting burnt
And spending time to keep the spark alive.
For anything worth having must be earnt.

Too placid or too fervent, you're undone,
But a steady burning fire makes a home.

He didn’t fully understand the poem, but it was very demonstrably and clearly about fire, and he was looking forward to getting Jehan’s help in deciphering some of the phrases where he felt he was losing the meaning. He had taken care to copy it out exactly, so that he could furiously annotate a copy, but had also checked out the original book just in case he’d made any mistakes in his copy.

He had parted from Jehan earlier in the day with a promise of ‘see you at the fire,’ and only when he got there did he realise that this wasn’t going to be quite as easy as he’d anticipated. Sonora seemed like a small school, but when all of it was squashed into a small area of the pitch, with added circus performers, and when you were one of the smallest people there, and were looking for another of the smallest it actually got decidedly tricky. Dorian decided that being quite literally at the bonfire was the best way to try to help Jehan find him, so moved over to stand next to it… Although he hadn’t meant that, he had just meant at the event of the fire… And now, doing this, he was technically beside the fire instead. But at least if one of them stayed still, the other one might find them more easily. Unless Jehan had thought the same thing, of course… He would give him ten minutes before he allowed that worry to take over, he decided.

He was planning to keep an eye out, but he couldn’t help but glance admiringly at the fire as well. At the flames as they…. vacillé. Scintillé. Sauté He frowned, realising how deeply he lacked the right vocabulary to describe this. The only word similar enough that he knew it in English was dansé. There was ‘jump’ for ‘sauté’ but it was more than that… It was a big jump. A magnificent jump. He pulled a notebook and quill from his satchel, which also contained the poetry book from the library, his copy of it, and the things he’d need for the night. He began scribbling down the words as they occurred to him, hoping Jehan would be able to help him find English equivalents, or at least give him some suitable English fire vocabulary. He might not know the exact words. As someone’s shadow fell across his page, he reflectively snapped the book shut, glancing up to see who had interrupted him.

13 Dorian Montoir Waiting for poetry 1401 Dorian Montoir 0 5

Raine and Starr

January 13, 2018 3:42 PM

Any familiar feelings? by Raine and Starr

“Nice to meet you,” Starr smiled, flicking a sideways five against Joe’s outstretched hand and then going in for a fistbump. “I’m sure Raine must’ve told me something about you, but I’m much better at remembering info with faces than with names,” he apologised, casting his sister a glance.

“Joe and I were in the same fair group. The Ethiopia project thing. And he helps me study.”

“I thought that was Ben?”

“They both do… A lot of our friends do…” Raine mumbled. When she’d seen her brother, she’d transformed, standing up straight and exuding a confidence not normally seen at Sonora, except perhaps when she’d been training. As the degree of help she needed with her schoolwork came up though, she returned to the usual Raine, miserable and self-conscious, addressing the floor instead of people.

“Hey, hey, it doesn’t matter. Judging fish and all that,” he reminded her, in reference to the fridge magnet in one of their tents that espoused that everyone was a genius, but if you judged a fish by its ability to climb trees, it would spend its whole life believing it was stupid. “What do you want me to set on fire for you?” he asked, figuring that getting Raine back on solid, familiar ground was the quickest way to get her back to her usual self.

“Hoop,” she requested.

He summoned one over and when Raine had it spinning set it alight. She twirled it happily, taking the time to just… relax, her hips swinging gently from side to side. She was not as lightly clad as she had been when Joe walked in on her but she’d known circus skills was on the cards, and was wearing leggings and a well-fitting tank top.

“I’m glad she has nice people like you keeping an eye on her,” Starr confided in an undertone to Joe, “She isn’t stupid,” he added, emphatically, just in case The System had been warping Joe’s mind. For all he was being nice to Raine, that didn’t mean he didn’t think like everyone else about her. “Now, let’s get you juggling. Unless you’d prefer something else? I don’t recommend poi though, as a guy if you’ve got zero circus experience it can be a real pain the nads,” he nodded to where one of his female cousins was deftly swinging two balls on strings. “Like… literally,” he added, in case Joe hadn’t put together what could happen if you misjudged where you swung one of those.

13 Raine and Starr Any familiar feelings? 327 Raine and Starr 0 5

Joe

January 15, 2018 12:44 PM

...Are Canadians allowed to plead the fifth? by Joe

Joe considered Starr’s statement and concluded that Raine had most likely never mentioned him to her family in her life. This did not offend him - indeed, it would have surprised him more if she had. He couldn’t imagine a topic his older siblings would find duller than who he was hanging out with, so long as nobody died, got pregnant, got married, or got arrested. The advantage of being the youngest, he supposed.

“No problem,” he said. “I’m pretty forgettable anyway,” he joked.

He was sorry to see Raine shrink back into herself at the mention of studying and the Ethiopia project, but was startled out of thinking about that when her brother casually asked what she wanted him to set on fire. The conversation continued incomprehensibly for a moment, then suddenly made rather alarming sense. Several thoughts occurred to him in rapid succession - alarm first, then realization - probably not the sort of fire that burned things, magical fire, that made sense - and then that the hula-hooping with fire was another rather intriguing sight….

When Starr referred to him as a nice person who looked after Raine, he was momentarily sure that his thoughts had been read and that this was a pointed reminder not to have them, but then he realized that was silly. There might be a warning in there about being nice in general, but nothing specific made sense. “You are a master of understatement,” he said in response to the comment on why swinging what looked like weights around on strings was probably best left to the professionals. “Er - juggling’s fine, provided it’s not on fire. I’m probably going to give myself several pains in the head before I get the hang of it, because my circus experience is pretty much at negative one.”

16 Joe ...Are Canadians allowed to plead the fifth? 329 Joe 0 5

Kira Spaulding

January 15, 2018 8:00 PM

Time to say goodbye(Tag Sammy) by Kira Spaulding

As happy as Kira was that Kelsey was graduating-it would be nice to have one year where she wasn't going to have to worry that her cousin's mere presence would alert others to her own flaws-it also meant Sammy was graduating and Kira was going to be down a friend. It was bad enough that Caelia had left Sonora already and Ned didn't even go here.

If she'd just been born two days sooner, she too would be graduating now. Going out in the world, maybe, hopefully marrying Ned. He'd really made a difference in Kira's life. Making her feel like someone understood her at last. And though she was hardly oozing with confidence now, making her feel like she was worthwhile as a person, and not just because of her magical ability which she still believed was the only remarkable thing about her.

Of course, if Kira was just two days older and a grade ahead, she'd have had to share a room with Kelsey and that sounded just unbearable. Not only did her cousin make her feel completely inadequate, she was also extremely bossy.

Still, the Crotalus was going to be awfully lonely next year as she'd never really been close with any of her yearmates other than Fabian. She'd still have him and Winston though.

After Headmaster Brockert welcomed them to the Bonfire, Kira looked around for Sammy. Finding the older girl, she approached. "Hey, do you want to share a tent?" She asked. If Caelia wasn't here, she wasn't going to share with Kelsey like last time, as she'd only done so to be with her friend.

And she was going to miss the Pecari.They didn't have all that much in common,which made Sammy's interest in being around her super confusing, as there was no family obligation like Fabian or Sophie had. Of course, Sophie seemed to like her most out of all Ryan's cousins and Kira thought it might be because she reminded Sophie of Ryan, in that they both had low self-esteem. Interestingly, Kira saw a lot of Sophie in Sammy.

Tonight though, might be the last time she ever saw her friend.

11 Kira Spaulding Time to say goodbye(Tag Sammy) 320 Kira Spaulding 0 5

Jozua Sparks

January 16, 2018 11:18 AM

Trying something nonlethal by Jozua Sparks

Jozua was pleased that his House won the Cup, but he wasn’t entirely convinced that learning to do circus things was really a great reward for it. To Jozua, that sounded like something that would result in more injury than fun.

He was barely competent at Quidditch even after four years of practicing. He was somewhat overweight- not seriously so, but enough that his face was decidedly round and he thought more people would choose to describe him as chubby rather than fit. He could handle a wand just fine, but anything requiring more athletic prowess and coordination than that was likely to result in Jozua falling flat on his face.

So it was with some trepidation that he followed the rest of his Housemates for their ‘award’ such as it was.

“So what do you want to try?” one of the performers asked, coming up to him, doubtless under the reasonable assumption that Jozua was looking for a circusy thing to do.

“Something that won’t kill me?” Jozua suggested doubtfully.

The circus lady laughed like he was joking. “Come on, I’ve got just the non-lethal trick for you.”

Jozua followed her, figuring she had a better idea for what he should do than he did, but not entirely trusting that his idea of nonlethal would entirely match that of a woman who presumably made her living hanging upside down and playing with fire.

She led him over to an area with a variety of hula hoops. Jozua blinked at them. “Hula hoops?” he questioned doubtfully.

“Haven’t ever seen or even heard of anyone get killed twirling a hoop,” the lady told him, a hint of a grin twitching at the corner of her mouth.

Jozua considered this and decided it was probably accurate. “All right,” he agreed in resignation. He picked up a green hoop. “What do I do? And I’m not shaking it around my hips.” He figured he ought to put that out there right off the bat.

She laughed and picked up a hoop of her own. “Start by twirling it around your arm.” She demonstrated.

It didn’t look too hard. Jozua tried. It spun off his arm and rolled away on its side, making him need to chase after it. Once he had recovered the hoop, he returned for further coaching. Obviously, even hoops were not for amateurs.

1 Jozua Sparks Trying something nonlethal 348 Jozua Sparks 0 5

Zevalyn

January 16, 2018 12:21 PM

Relaxing? Yes. Maybe I ought to do it more. by Zevalyn

Zevalyn was have a good bonfire. Aladren hadn’t won the House Cup, but she had already resigned herself to that after seeing how far behind they had in Professor Mims’ count all year. Last she’d seen, Teppenpaw had over a hundred points up on them.

Next year, Zevalyn vowed, she’d be very nearly caught up with her year mates and she out to be able to start answering questions at her age level and earn more points for her House. It probably wouldn’t cover a hundred point deficit, but she could at least try to help narrow that gap.

Today, though, was about relaxing and having fun, two things she had allowed herself much of over the past two years. But now, now she was so close to being caught up. She could dial back the studying- well, except there were CATS coming up, so probably not too much, but it would at least be mostly review rather than new material- and actually enjoy school for a change.

She had fun watching the circus performers and the food was good and the choir and orchestra did great - maybe, maybe next year she would have time to join a club or two for fun. (The dueling club didn’t really count- she was doing that for the extra DADA practice.)

Not only would it be good to have some fin hobbies again, but her social life could use the boost too. She found herself alone for most of the day and she really wasn’t sure who she could share a tent with tonight. She was the only Aladren her age, so she’d been without a roommate for most of her time here.

She counted Georgia as a friend but Georgia did have a roommate, and she wasn’t sure if they were planning to continue their normal overnight companionship and if so if they would welcome additional unfamiliar company. Zevalyn didn’t think she snored, but hadn’t ever had a roommate long enough to be certain.

Well, she didn’t really have many other options so she may as well ask, before it got too late. She saw Georgia heading over to the fire with marshmallows and got some for herself before joining her.

“Yeah,” she agreed about the bonfire being fun. “It’s a good send off before summer vacation.” She hesitated just a moment then decided to get it over with, and the semi anxious questions came tumbling out, “Do you mind if I join your tent tonight? Are you sharing with Juniper? Do you you think she’d mind?”

1 Zevalyn Relaxing? Yes. Maybe I ought to do it more. 380 Zevalyn 0 5

Georgia

January 16, 2018 2:12 PM

Cool. Maybe we should do it together more by Georgia

“Cool. Good choice of snack too,” Georgia grinned, when she saw that Zevalyn had also brought marshmallows over. She was glad Zevalyn seemed happy and chilled. Her life seemed to have been completely crazy up to this point. Georgia had literally no idea how she managed the workload she did, so it was nice to know she was enjoying the party. Although she did seem to have something on her mind…

“I-yes, no,” she stumbled, as Zevalyn let out a slew of questions that all required different answers. “I’d love to share with you. I’m not sharing with-” she paused. Was she? She and Juniper were roommates after all. And it wasn’t like Juniper had a lot of friends. But there were all the society people, who would automatically accept her and half of whom she was related to anyway, and wasn’t Juniper like… supposed to want to spend her time with them instead of people like Georgia and Zevalyn. “I don’t know what Juniper’s doing,” she admitted. “But it’d be the other way round anyway - you’d have to be ok with her if she wants to share with us,” she assured Zevalyn. She remembered how nervous Zevalyn had seemed when she came to sit with her at the feast too. As far as intimidation level went, Georgia really didn’t think hers should rank that high. She was a chubby and fairly friendless halfblood who was still new enough to the magical world to be socially clumsy with it and had next to no friends, not to mention the fact that she was in the cuddly house. Zev, for all her booksmarts - or perhaps because she’d had her nose buried in one so much - seemed to be struggling to notice that.

“Y’know… you don’t have to be so nervous every time you ask me about hanging out,” she added, trying to make light of it. “You’re pretty much my best friend here,” she explained, feeling a little bit nervous in case that was like… a really lame thing to say.

13 Georgia Cool. Maybe we should do it together more 346 Georgia 0 5

Kir McLeod

January 16, 2018 4:04 PM

I guess that's for the best by Kir McLeod

Kir was sort of excited for the bonfire. After all, who didn’t love a good fire? His dad and his aunt didn’t often reminisce about many things from their childhood - unsurprising given their eventual decisions to run away from the stifling Pureblood society and get themselves disowned - but when they did, it was Scotland, rather than family, that they reminisced about. New Year celebrations seemed like they’d been full of fire, including fire swinging, and effigy burning on a great big bonfire. These had been rather eclipsed in their adult life by running The McLeod Foundation’s New Year’s Eve party, an event which celebrated the achievements of their foundation supporting LGBTQ+ causes, and which consisted half of Scottish dancing, half drag cabaret, all very drunken and not necessarily a great combination with fire given that it was a) primarily indoors b) full of drag queens, who were amongst the most highly flammable people on the planet. They usually had a bonfire on the evening of New Year’s Day, because his family said it didn’t feel right to bring in the year without any fires, and everyone who wasn’t too abysmally hung over gathered around to burn an effigy of some notably unpopular public figure from the year. He doubted much of that would be going on at the Sonora fire. It was all wrong in a lot of ways. Summer was definitely the wrong season for fire, but that was what American fires were like. They were cutesy little things you made on camp outs to toast marshmallows on. And, well, not that he didn’t love toasted marshmallows, but it wasn’t quite the same as burning homophobic politicians atop a blazing pyre. He was pretty sure that wasn’t the kind of thing you could say to anyone without sounding like a psychopath though, especially as they were in America - and he indeed, was an Ameircan - and not Scotland. He was pleased to see that the bonfire was decently large, and the circus performers added a nice air of suitably renegade chaos.

In deference to his usual fireside pursuits, or perhaps just because it was a good chance for a little bit of promotion, he’d donned a McLeod Foundation t-shirt, the name of the organisation emblazoned across his chest, book ended by little rainbow banners.

He was even more pleased when they got to actually go play with the circus equipment, although it didn’t necessarily look like they’d get to play with fire themselves, which he felt was something of a shame but probably for the best… He wished that he was good enough that doing so was an option, but as he almost definitely wasn’t, unless he had a freakish natural talent for some kind of circus thing, then it was probably better for his hair and eyebrows and everyone’s well being that he wasn’t going to.

He thought about trying juggling, because that was the skill he could see himself most often getting to use in something approaching real life, but Jozua’s twirling hoop caught his eye, and he also needed to make social contact with some people he could tent share with, so he decided to go join him. He had got as far as picking up a hoop when he noticed that Ginger Pierce was juggling fire and Raine Collindale was spinning it, which involved decidedly wiggling her leggings-clad hips. If questioned sternly, he may have been forced to admit to a moment of open-mouthed staring that had very little to do with the fire, before he came to his senses enough to ask Jozua

“How the heck are they doing that?”

13 Kir McLeod I guess that's for the best 366 Kir McLeod 0 5

Sammy Meeks

January 16, 2018 8:43 PM

Don't worry, we've got a little time first! by Sammy Meeks

The first thing Sammy did when she arrived on the Pitch was ditch her sneakers and stuff her socks in her backpack. She wiggled her toes against the grass and grinned. Did the bare feet go with her otherwise stylish outfit? Probably not. Did she care? Not at all. Fashion was about being bold and daring or whatever.

It was weird, being on the Pitch and not expecting to launch into the air, not preparing to swing a bat and send certain doom at an underclassman. It was a beautiful experience that she was probably not going to have again, at least not in the same capacity. Sammy was going to have to find some rec leagues or something. Her chosen college didn’t have a Quidditch team, though, and she probably wasn’t going pro in the future. So her captaincy at Sonora - and, admittedly, going out on a loss - was probably the end of the run.

But she was smiling nonetheless. Sonora’s Head Girl was pretty pleased with how things had gone here. And sure, graduating was somewhat bittersweet, but she’d make it. She’d watched a lot of her friends leave - either graduating or transferring out - over the years here, so it was weird to be the one leaving now, leaving Kira and Ben and her Pecalus babies, etc. Hopefully they’d remain in touch, like she’d stayed in touch with John and Jamie since they left. So it would be okay. And it was time to move on, really. She was eighteen now and ready to stretch her wings.

Not before one last day with her friends, though, and speaking of, she was pleased to see Kira coming up to her. Sammy was very glad the two of them had become friends; Kira was shy and nervous, but she was way smarter and way more fun than she thought she was. “Definitely!” Sammy replied happily. “Want to go claim a tent now, or hang out by the fire for a while first? Because I don’t mean to brag, but I do make a mean s’more, and I’ve got a hankering for some marshmallowy goodness.”

12 Sammy Meeks Don't worry, we've got a little time first! 310 Sammy Meeks 0 5

Jozua Sparks

January 16, 2018 9:43 PM

Yeah. Sparks burn. by Jozua Sparks

Jozua honestly wasn't paying much attention to the people around him. He was pretty focused on the cursed green hoop that keep wanting to run away from him. So when someone close by asked, "How the heck are they doing that?" Jozua had no idea he was the person being addressed or what feats the speaker was talking about. But the question raised enough curiosity in him for him to look around. Georgia Kirkly was hula hooping in the normal manner, and doing surprisingly good with it. Kir McLeod was evidently the person who spoke and given the lack of other viable targets, Jozua gathered he'd been the one so addressed. Following Kir's line of sight - Oh. Wow.

How was Raine doing that?

But he'd said they. That meant more than one person. Well, Joe was doing an unspectacular job of juggling and . . . Raine was still doing the flaming hoop thing, which was really hard to look away from.

Oh, more fire over there. Ginger Pierce. Whoa. Who knew the Teppenpaw Quidditch Captain could throw fire around like that? Then she neatly doused her fire sticks, bowed to her audience and wandered off. Huh.

And Raine was still fire hooping. He suddenly had a lot more respect for the activity which he had recently been learning. Speaking of, where was his hoop? Curse it. "Excuse me," he said to Kir and ran after where it had flown and rolled off while he was distracted. Returning with it, and not attempting to multitask, he remained holding the hoop but not doing anything with it as he said, "I have no idea," he answered the immediate question, because he really, honestly, had no idea about the mechanics of how they had done those things. "I had no idea Ginger could juggle like that, but Raine, I think Raine's in a circus. Didn't know she was so . . ." Jozua looked at her again and forgot what he'd been going to say. "I want my hoop on fire," he said after a moment. "That looks so awesome." Reason came back to him. "But I'd probably get third degree burns or something, so probably not yet."

"You gonna hoop?" he asked, waving Kir invitingly over to the pile. "Raine makes it look sexy, and Georgia's doing pretty great at it, too, but I feel like an idiot swinging it around on my arm and not even managing that."

1 Jozua Sparks Yeah. Sparks burn. 348 Jozua Sparks 0 5

Zevalyn

January 16, 2018 10:11 PM

Works for me by Zevalyn

Zevalyn grinned, and saluted Georgia with her marshmallow-on-a-stick, as it was complimented. Then, as Georgia stumbled through answering Zevalyn's cascade of questions, her eyes widened a bit in surprise as Georgia declared her as her best friend. Wow. That was unexpected and flattering. She couldn't help a grin spreading across her face. "You're my best friend here, too," she returned the declaration, making it mutual. Amber was probably still her best-best friend, but Amber wasn't here, and never could be, because Amber didn't have magic. And with Zevalyn being away from Pheonix nine months out of the year, they were already starting to drift apart.

"And I'd be totally okay with Juniper joining us, if she wants to," Zevalyn added, to close the one loose thread left hanging. "I don't know her very well, but wouldn't mind getting to know her. She seems really shy though. If you two had been planning to tent together, I didn't want to make her nervous. I don't have a roommate, so I wasn't sure whether it's standard to stick with them for your tent or find someone new."

She grinned again, bouncing a little as she put her marshmallow near the flames, "So, best friend, let's get to the hard questions now. What's your favorite color, and your favorite story? Book, play, TV show, whatever your media of choice is."

1 Zevalyn Works for me 380 Zevalyn 0 5

Kir

January 17, 2018 11:55 AM

A little spark can be a good thing though by Kir

“Yeah, she is,” Kyte nodded, when Jozua pointed out that Raine was was really…. In spite of the sentence not ending with any discernible adjective, he definitely agreed. “I wish the Aladren girls were in Teppenpaw,” he mused, before realising how dumb that made him sound. “I mean-” he cut himself off, decided that any attempt to explain would probably see him digging himself a bigger hole.

“Yeah, I wish I was good enough that playing with fire was a realistic option,” he agreed, his attention switching to Jozua as the boy engaged in a conversation with real actual finished sentences.

“I’ll give it a go,” he agreed. Either he would achieve the magical hypnotic power the girls had (he could but hope) or he would at least keep Jozua company in feeling like an idiot, which would be good for bonding.

“Round your waist is probably the easiest to start with,” the circus lady advised him. “Though hand spins aren’t too bad - try to use your thumb to hook it each time,” she advised both him and Jozua, “if you feel like waist spins are too girly.”

“I’m wearing a rainbow,” Kir pointed out, gesturing at the very obviously gay pride leaning of his t-shirt, taking a hoop and sliding it onto his hips. You didn’t exactly get raised by his parents and aunts and not take ‘unless that’s too girly’ as a direct challenge to do exactly whatever was being suggested in order to Prove A Point about gender stereotypes. He also didn’t particularly suffer from self-consciousness in any great degree. He’d never shied away from the dance floor at parties, and how different could this be to working it to ‘Hips Don’t Lie’? He also figured he couldn’t send the hoop flying into Jozua’s face this way, and that would probably help him in the ‘making a friend’ stakes. People tended to like their noses unbroken in relationships.

“You can swing side to side, or front to back, whatever feels natural to you,” the hooping lady advised.
Kir gave it a go, singing to himself in his head as he did so. Mostly in his head. A ‘como se llama’ and a ‘mi casa, su casa’ might have slipped out outloud. He had pretty decent hip action though, and the hoop kept up its rotation until the circus lady complimented him, at which point he got distracted and dropped it.

“So, do I look as good as the girls?” he asked Jozua, picking up the hoop and beginning again, “Minus the fire, in Raine’s case, obviously,” he added, in between humming bursts of Shakira, as he felt that was definitely helping. Kir didn’t always have the same filters as other people about what acceptable ‘guy talk,’ was and between this and the rainbow banner on his t-shirt, it was probably a good thing he’d been very obviously checking out Raine, otherwise Jozua might have got rather confused. He was potentially still getting somewhat mixed messages.

13 Kir A little spark can be a good thing though 366 Kir 0 5

Jozua

January 17, 2018 2:10 PM

Really, let’s not spark anything here by Jozua

Jozua gave Kir an odd look, momentarily confused about whether Kir meant the House Aladren or the town Aladren, but deciding that he must mean the House Aladren because Kir probably didn’t know any of the town Aladren girls, but Jozua wasn’t quite sure what difference it made what House they were in, unless Kir wanted to see them hula ... oh. “Wouldn’t mind one of the Pecaris being in Teppenpaw right now either,” Jozua agreed. Not that that wouldn’t make things even weirder between him and Lily, but he did think she might have fun doing circusy things with him.

The circus lady came back over as she saw Kir going for a hoop and made recommendations. Jozua was surprised when Kir went for the waist hooping. Oh Merlin, between her comment and Kir ignoring the girliness factor and pointing out his shirt’s rainbows, that made Jozua look like some kind of sexist homophobic bigot.

With a heavy sigh of defeat, he was about to step inside the hoop when he noticed that Kir was actually good at this. He quickly averted his eyes. Lily had seemed awful quick to think he was gay and he was not about to let that idea spread. Nor was he going to look like a totally uncoordinated fool with no hip action next to all these people who actually had talent.

He started twirling the hoop on his arm again, this time using his thumb to try to keep it from running pell mell all over the backstage area. That worked a little better, until Kir asked...

“Seriously?” Jozua stared at him, and realized the thought had come out out loud. “How should, I, you,” he tried desperately to recover some kind of dignity and coherence, but that just gave his hoop the opportunity it had been waiting for. He glared after its retreating loops, took a deep breath and returned his attention back to Kir, arms crossed defensively in front of him, and cheeks flaming almost as brightly as Raine’s hoop. “Maybe Louis might think so.” He realized he was watching Kir’s hips again and looked away quickly, his embarrassment burning even brighter. “But I totally don’t!” he added and fled to get his hoop.

He returned a few moments later, still flushed but not as deeply. He pointedly stood to face towards Raine rather than Kir as he started arm twirling again. Which was a bad idea. He barely caught the hoop before it got away and turn around again so he couldn’t see either of them easily.

Then he considered this might suggest he thought Kir was as distracting as Raine, so he turned back to face Kir again. And Merlin curse it all! That was distracting, too!

He caught the hoop before it rolled off too far and stated very clearly, so there was no confusion going on here, “I like Lily.” Nevermind that she didn’t like him back. That was immaterial.

1 Jozua Really, let’s not spark anything here 348 Jozua 0 5

Kir

January 17, 2018 5:26 PM

Mind the flying hoops don't shatter your fragile masculinity by Kir

Kir was tempted for a moment to ask which Pecari Jozua specifically wanted there, but he didn’t necessarily think that was a fair question given how little he knew the other boy. He also wasn’t particularly keen to answer any reciprocal enquiries, so he just let it go.

He dropped his hoop in surprise at Jozua’s tone. The other boy sounded kind of pissed off with him. Jozua rapidly went through fumbling his hoop, being snappy, and turning his back on Kir in quick succession. Kir managed to process that Louis Valois was possibly gay and that Jozua had very fragile masculinity, before the other boy decided he wasn’t done, dropped his hoop again, and decided to defend even further how very heterosexual he was. Kir made a mental note to try and slip Louis some flyers later, and maybe have a quiet word with him, but there wasn’t much he could do about that right now. There was, however, the issue of Jozua. He stepped out of his hoop and picked it up, gripping it in one hand and bouncing the rim on the floor.

Kir felt his neck burning. He had, rather surprisingly, not got into an argument with anyone at school so far over his family’s politics, and he wouldn’t have pegged a… a relatively normal seeming boy from his house as likely to be the first. He didn’t want to argue with Jozua. He knew that meeting hate with hate never got you anywhere. And ‘hateful’ was a strong word for what Jozua being. He was just… Uncomfortable. Not that that was acceptable in Kir’s book. How could you be uncomfortable with other people’s existence, and not feel like that was wrong? How could who other people loved and or were attracted to be something that wound someone up this much? But he wasn’t going to yell, or put Jozua down. Kir had been sorted into Teppenpaw for a reason - he was good at taking a deep breath, and trying to be calm. Diplomatic. He wasn’t quite sure how Jozua had ended up there, but that wasn’t the issue right now. When Jozua turned back, Kir was wearing a look that said he wasn’t angry, just disappointed.

“I don’t care who you like. Or who anyone else does. That’s kind of the point,” Kir replied to Jozua’s declaration. “Unless it’s me, then I’d be very keen to know,” he added. “Why are you sound wound up by what I said?” he challenged.

13 Kir Mind the flying hoops don't shatter your fragile masculinity 366 Kir 0 5

Vladimir Brockert

January 17, 2018 7:23 PM

Ooh, fun! by Vladimir Brockert

Vlad really liked camping. Sometimes he went camping with Dad and some of his uncles and cousins, and that was really fun. It was just the boys that went, which he didn’t really get because he was pretty sure some of the girls would’ve probably had fun going, but he had a good time when he went anyway, even if he did miss his mom and his sisters while they were gone.

But the cool thing about Sonora’s camping was that everybody got to go, yay! Except that boys had to share tents with boys and girls had to share tents with girls, so that meant he couldn’t share with Ivy or Peyton or Tatiana, but he could still share with Dorian! Admittedly he had done that all year, but he liked it a lot so this would be fun to keep doing!

That’s who he was looking for in the crowd when somebody bumped into him (literally) and turned out to also be looking for Dorian. It was Jehan, their yearmate. Vladimir knew that Dorian was friends with Jehan, so he wasn’t surprised that the Aladren boy was looking for him. “No, sorry,” Vlad answered. “I was looking for him, too, actually. Do you want to look together?” Neither boy was particularly tall to see over the crowd - Vlad himself happened to be a bit short for his age, and given that his age was eleven, that made him generally pretty small - but maybe having two sets of eyes looking would help. And even if it didn’t, it was better to have company than to be alone!

12 Vladimir Brockert Ooh, fun! 1400 Vladimir Brockert 0 5

Jozua

January 18, 2018 10:08 AM

Hey! That’s harsh! by Jozua

Jozua stared at Kir, confused and taken aback. “I thought- You weren’t? I - Oh.“ Okay. He must have totally misread the other boy’s question and consequently overreacted in entirely the wrong way for present company. Now he was still embarrassed but for entirely different reasons.

He rolled the hoop on the ground in front of him, just to have something for his hands to do while he tried to figure how much of an explanation Kir was owed. Something certainly was, and if Kir had been Joe (not that Joe would have ever asked such a question to spark this whole debacle) the whole conversation between him and Lily would have probably come out (or at least the parts that weren’t protected by Adventurer’s Honor), but he just didn’t know Kir that well.

Of course, he had sort of already skipped ahead to the key point of the whole mess and told Kir outright the thing that Lily had been trying to get at for that whole conversation. Next to that, the rest of it was basically nothing.

So Jozua sighed and his shoulders slumped, and he repeated, more in defeated admission than the defensive assertion of just a minute ago, “I like Lily. When I tried to avoid telling her that, she thought I was telling her I was gay.” He looked up quickly and bit back his reflexive assertion that he was not because he was pretty sure Kir wouldn’t appreciate it. “I thought maybe other people thought that too and you were hitting on me because you thought I was into that kind of thing. Sorry, I overreacted.”

He hesitated just a moment then asked, just to be sure, “You weren’t hitting on me, right?”

1 Jozua Hey! That’s harsh! 348 Jozua 0 5

Kir

January 18, 2018 6:37 PM

So are you by Kir

Kir waited patiently for Jozua to form his thoughts into sentences. Overall, Jozua seemed to be calming down, which was probably a good thing, as Kir had suddenly remembered that the other boy ran the duelling club. He liked to think he’d have been heroic to call him out on his reaction either way but he had this sneaky doubt that the reason he’d never got into a confrontation of any kind before was because he was a coward and kept avoiding it when it needed to come up.

Although it seemed like his chances for bravery weren’t quite over yet… Jozua had apologised. And checked that nothing gay was going on, because Merlin forbid that anyone should be openly gay in public in a high school. Kir could accept the apology, and assure Jozua that this was all just cool straight bros hanging out being straight, and could leave the encounter with his kneecaps facing their usual direction. Or could he try to explain…

“Thanks. It sounds like your year was… complicated,” he conceded. “And I’m not hitting on you,” he confirmed, Homophobes aren’t really my type. He bit back the response. Boys weren’t really his type, he was pretty sure, but that was by far the less relevant point right now. He would rather his classmates thought he was gay than that he would judge anyone who was, as in his book, only one of those was a bad thing to be. He would rather do what was kind and right than what was safe or easy. He would rather risk his kneecaps than let his family down.

“Jozua…. The thing is though…. It shouldn’t matter whether I did or not, or whether you are or not. If a girl hit on you, and you didn’t like her, you wouldn’t bite her head off, so why do it to me? Just cos you’re not gay doesn’t mean you should treat it like it’s something disgusting. People think they don’t know anyone gay in school. So they think they can make it into a joke, or an insult. And they wouldn’t say it to a gay person’s face - they’re not cruel - so they think that everything they’re doing is fine. But is it any wonder most people don’t come out in highschool if that’s how their classmates talk about them?”
His mouth had never been so freaking dry. But, if his kneecaps were to be obliterated, at least they would die a hero’s death. He would have felt like such a fraud if he’d just walked away.

13 Kir So are you 366 Kir 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

January 18, 2018 8:53 PM

Firebird of old, give us your apples of gold. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Midsummer and Bonfire were new words for Tatiana, but she recognized parts of them – particularly summer, and mid, that was the first part of the word middle; noticing these little things was much of what made English even marginally comprehensible when people actually spoke it outside a book – and recognized the occasion pretty well. It was like Ivan Kupala, St. John’s Day. In Petersburg, they would have the festival of the White Nights, which Mama always talked about and which Tatiana longed to attend someday, and at home, there would, as now, be a fire.

Arriving in many fewer jewels than usual, however – just her diamond studs in her ears – and a light dress, she quickly concluded that this was about where the similarities were going to end. There was no water, beyond the quantities and presentations that could be drunk, and no flowers. At home, everyone would wear flowers in their hair, and older girls would use theirs to tell their fortunes in flowing water. Bathing in such was encouraged as well, either in light clothes (such as the dress Tatiana was wearing) or nothing at all. None of that was in evidence, nor couples trying to sneak off into the woods, not least because they weren’t any woods, just the stands. There was at least music – these people weren’t total barbarians, then, or very dull and sad – and some fire-dancers, which was some consolation, but the overall effect was still a bit…foreign.

Trying to focus on the bits that were not peculiar and disappointing, and ignoring how nobody was jumping over the fire, she wandered around smiling at people and wishing them a happy Midsummer in English until she saw one she knew. Her shadow preceded her to Dorian, though, and he snapped his book – presumably his English word-book – closed all of a sudden, which made Tatiana grin at him when he looked at her.

“You with secrets?” she joked, pointing to the book.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Firebird of old, give us your apples of gold. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova 0 5

Gary

January 18, 2018 9:20 PM

What about potions class? by Gary

Gary just shook his head in disbelief as she talked about her horses. "As big as elephants? That's incredible. What kind of wingspan do they have? To get enough lift for that kind of weight... That's like a swallow trying to carry a coconut." He grinned, mainly to himself, at the reference. "Are their bones hollow like birds? That would drop their weight considerably, but would it leave enough strength to support the creatures while they were standing?" He mused for a few moments, realizing that he had no real way of calculating weight ratios and bone density factors in his head, even if he knew all of the correct numbers and formulas. "I guess that's another thing to chalk up to 'a wizard did it'." His brain paused again momentarily as it took another sudden left turn at that thought and shot down a completely unrelated dark alley in his mind, "Do owlbears actually exist? Lore usually claims that a crazy wizard made those things."

He chuckled a bit at her reaction to his camping story. "Yeah, Dad had mostly gotten the tent up while Mom was unpacking the food when the rain started. It started off slowly enough, but then the critters came to steal the food when Mom went back to the car. Dad and I saw them and we both moved to defend our pantry." Gary crouched a little and jumped, getting into the story. "Dad's foot got tangled in the tent line and he pulled the whole thing down while landing on his face. Mom turned and shrieked as the animals scampered away with our food, just as a huge bolt of lightening streaked across the sky. It was followed almost immediately with a booming crash of thunder and the skies opened up. We all ran for the car, and spent the rest of the night there." The same sad smile crossed Gary's face again as the memory washed over him again. Then he snapped himself out of it and back to the present. "The rain let up in the morning, and pretty much everything was gone. It was an experience."

2 Gary What about potions class? 1404 Gary 0 5

Jozua

January 18, 2018 9:52 PM

You underestimate my level of freakability by Jozua

Oh, good. Not hitting on him. That was good. Very good. It would make the next three years very awkward otherwise. Then Kir kept talking and Jozua began to suspect Kir might be making assumptions of his own. He made some valid points too that Jozua might need to think about more another time, but he had one thing wrong.

“Oh, no, I’d freak out if a girl hit on me, too,” he promised. “Probably differently,” he admitted, “But I’d’ve definitely concluded the same way, with a forceful assertion that I like Lily.” Of that he was certain. "I wasn't just throw a girl's name at you. I was throwing the girl's name at you." Such a flirting hadn’t happened yet, and he honestly didn’t expect it to, but he had no intention of leaving Lily for another girl over such a paltry reason as that she didn’t love him back that way and someone else might.

Truthfully, Jozua wasn’t even sure he liked Lily that way either. He just knew he want to be with her for the rest of his life in whatever capacity she wanted him there. He did recognize that he got jealous and felt their future together was threatened if she talked about boyfriends, though, which was what had led him to believe he must like-like her instead of just liking her.

He took a deep breath and let it out again. “Heck, I’d probably freak out and bite her head off if Lily changed her mind and hit on me.“ Jozua began spinning the hoop restlessly between his hands. “The whole thing just makes me nervous and I say dumb things when I get nervous.”

He was nervous now, but figured Kir had already got hit with some dumb words from Jozua, so he could risk a few more, and he did want to know, for potential future need, “So if you really just want to spend the rest of your life adventuring around the world with your best friend, and you aren’t interested in dating anyone because she’s not interested in you, what is the culturally sensitive way to handle someone else fishing for compliments about their sexiness?”

1 Jozua You underestimate my level of freakability 348 Jozua 0 5

Dorian

January 19, 2018 6:20 AM

I have no real need for gold, for I have a friend to hold by Dorian

Ah. It was Tatya. Dorian had been ready to squirrel the book away into his pocket, far too used to his things being snatched by his brother for a game of keep-away. He had not had any such experiences at Sonora but he was wary of being in grabbing range of anyone older than him. But it was Tatya - his Tatya - and he relaxed.

"Oh yes, very big secret," he nodded seriously. Leaning in with an air of confidentiality he stage whispered, "I cannot speak the English good," his accent exaggerated and his grammar deliberately off. "Please, not tell anyone."

“I write down the fire words. The light… the movement. All very exact words, and I do not know,” he explained, holding the page out to her. His serious air had quickly melted into a broad grin. It felt good to be able to joke around. He felt a surge of affection for Tatya, at having a friend who understood how it felt to struggle to find your words. He wanted to reach out and twirl her around in a twirl that said 'I am so happy to be here with you. I am so happy that we had this year together.' He settled for an arm across her shoulders instead, giving her a squeeze. Sometimes it was hard to know the rules about touching. You weren't supposed to touch girls because it was inappropriate - indelicate. You weren't supposed to touch boys because that was inappropriate in a whole other set of ways - that was chochotte. Luckily, his own group of friends seemed just as tactile as he was, although it sometimes felt like they had to keep it out of sight of other people. Hopefully Tatya’s reputation wouldn’t be ruined by a simple hug. She’d embraced him in a hall full of people afterall. And she didn’t have any older brothers looming about the place to disapprove… Perhaps it would be more complicated as they got older but for now it seemed safe. He was so happy and so comfortable with the people around him, and his heart felt so grateful and so light.

"Ma chère Tatya," he smiled. Chère really was the perfect word for her, because he imagined that keeping her happy definitely would be. "You have extra nickname for when I am even more happy to see you?" he asked. He knew there were several thousand variations of her name but he was never sure about the various rules or connotations for using them - whether some were just for family. He didn’t want to overstep any boundaries. Luckily, he had two other languages at his disposal if there wasn’t anything he could use, but he liked trying to use Russian with her, and making her feel at home.

OOC - chère means ‘dear’ but has the same double meaning as in English, also meaning expensive.

13 Dorian I have no real need for gold, for I have a friend to hold 1401 Dorian 0 5

Owen

January 21, 2018 1:32 AM

Yeah, last time. by Owen

He waited with baited breath. Even though it was probably a split second before Jemima replied, when it was something that was this big a deal, it still seemed to take forever.

“Of course I want to marry you!.I’ve always wanted to marry you. You’re my soulmate.”

Feelings of relief were trumped by happiness. The happiest happiness that Owen had ever felt. It was official. He and Jemima were getting married . Whatever else happened, it was going to all be okay because he would be with her. Nothing in the world mattered more to him.

Owen was so overcome with joy, that for a second he didn't notice Jemima's outstretched hand.

Oh, right.

He placed the ring on her finger. The Teppenpaw didn't know much about jewlery-though Angelique and Ruby had assured him the ring was lovely itself when they'd gone along with him and his mother-but he was sure that it's beauty was enhanced by merely being placed on Jemima's hand.

Once the ring was in place, Owen gripped her hand and pulled her towards him, taking her in his arms for a tight hug. "You've just made me so happy." He whispered in her ear. "I love you." The about to graduate seventh year gave her a passionate kiss.

Once this was finished, he asked. "So, um, what do you want to do now? I am kind of hungry." The scent of the barbeque was wafting towards his nose, enticing him.

11 Owen Yeah, last time. 300 Owen 0 5

Tatiana

January 22, 2018 5:08 PM

Having both makes one happy and bold. by Tatiana

Tatiana leaned forward to hear as Dorian whispered about his great ‘secret.’ Upon the revelation, she stood back, covering her mouth with her hand in mock surprise.

“Never tell,” she said, just as seriously. “Our secret.”

She looked politely over the page of words, though the French was in places beyond hers (wasn’t ‘sauté’ something one did to food? Did Dorian want to cook on the bonfire?) and put an arm around him in turn as she did. It had seemed odd, being familiar with people here, earlier in the year, but at home, she was so used to walking around holding hands with Katya when she wasn’t hair-pulling with Katya or hugging Papa that she was now pleased she and Dorian were not so formal together now.

“We have many words, too, po-russkii,” she told him. “This – maybe ogon’, maybe pozhar, not kamin. I think plamya best.” Plamya had the sense of ‘blaze,’ where kamin was a more controlled fire, like in a fireplace. Ogon’ and pozhar were less specific.

Tatiana thought for a moment about her other names and their contexts – she had never really had friends outside the family before coming here, as Mama thought she and her sisters and brothers should be able to entertain themselves with the occasional assistance from her cousins. “You can say Tanushka,” she decided finally. Tatianochka was what Papa called her, when he didn’t call her malen’kii kolibri or umnaya doch’, it was very much a pet name, and only Mama and Grishka ever really called her ‘Tanya.’ Besides, ‘Tanya’ in particular was no more intimate than ‘Tatya.’ “French, Chinese – they really have no names like this?”

OOC: Tatiana’s Russian fire words courtesy of Google Translate. Malen’kii kolibri means ‘little hummingbird’ and umnaya doch’ means ‘clever daughter.’

16 Tatiana Having both makes one happy and bold. 1396 Tatiana 0 5

Jasmine

January 24, 2018 10:17 AM

The potions might suffer, but I’d enjoy it more by Jasmine

Jasmine was dutifully trying to remember the measure of Flossie’s wingspan when Gary, instead of politely waiting for her to provide the requested statistic, kept asking questions, each one increasingly less likely for her to be able to answer than the last, until he was questioning her about some kind of obscure creature called an owlbear, which her family certainly didn’t raise on their ranch.

“Well, I haven’t heard of them,” she said, opting to answer the latest question since the conversation seemed to have moved along to that point with all of Gary’s rambling. “But we’re still just first years, so they may come up in intermediate or advanced Care of Magical Creatures. I don’t know about some unnamed mad wizard, but magic in general has made some very unlikely things possible.”

“Like elephant sized flying horses,” she added, sounding very pleased with herself for bringing the conversation back around to those. “Their bones are not hollow,” she put in, too, because she knew this, and he had asked. “They use magic to make up for their lack of arrow dynamics.” Uncle Daniel had told her that once. She wasn’t quite sure what arrow dynamics were, but she gathered they had something to do with how things could fly (including arrows, but horses and planes and brooms and other things, too. She guessed maybe the term was invented when it was mostly arrows that people worried about flying.)

She picked up a handful of marshmallows from the food table and asked, “Did you want to toast marshmallows?” She was closer to the roasting sticks, “I can grab you a stick.”

1 Jasmine The potions might suffer, but I’d enjoy it more 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Dorian

January 25, 2018 9:10 PM

But I would not choose to be without- JEEEEEHAAAAAN by Dorian

Dorian smiled as Tatya agreed to keep his secret. She hugged him back, which reassured him both in the sense that his hug was clearly not unwelcome, and also because it was always nice to be held. He wasn't sure whether she was talking about words for fire, or words for describing what the fire did, but he decided to let them just wash over him for now. He liked hearing her speak Russian even when he didn't understand, because it was just... right. She was being herself, and happy and comfortable, and that was reassuring because the world was a better place when people were able to be comfortable in their own skins. Which he was, here, with all of his friends.

“I think I like Sonora,” he decided. “Even they speak the wrong language and make my head hurt sometime. It have very good people. Have you, Tanushka, have Jehan...” he dropped his arm from Tatya, so he could turn from the fire, and keep an eye out. “I am supposed to meet him...” he explained, scanning the crowd.

“Hmm. We have some small names,” he explained, putting his book away, as he thought he might not need it for a while, “But sometimes it depend on the name. Some name have many ways of being shorter, but some it is more hard to make the nickname with. We all are calling Émilie 'Émi' very often, but no one is calling me 'Dori' – it not work, I not know why,” he forestalled any questioning from Tatya. “Chinese, we always have house name – the small affectionate way that our parents call us, but only one... Then, of course, when we visit there we use our Chinese name, but this is completely different name, not nickname. My parents will use more describing words or the sweet words like chèr... chèrie, mon lapinou... Before, I think I have a lot of names but then I meet you,” he grinned. “Maybe I need- JEHAN!” he began, deciding that he would have to start using more nicknames for all of them in order to properly demonstrate to Tatya the full rich affection of his home languages, but cutting himself off as he saw his best friend. Although Jehan was not alone. There was not one but two curly heads making their way towards them, as he seemed to have picked up Vlad along the way. It seemed slightly odd to see them together in a situation which he hadn't initiated, as he was usually the link between them (and when Jehan had been meant to be coming to meet him) but they would all be sharing a tent later anyway, and so he quickly brushed this aside in favour of just being happy at having almost everyone he loved (and/or liked – Vlad had been very gallant in saving him from the balloons without even laughing but he wasn't as close to him as he was to Tanushka and Jehan) in the same place at the same time.

Dorian quickly closed the remaining few paces between them, launching himself at Jehan with none of the hesitation or delicacy with which he'd hugged Tatya. He flung both arms round Jehan's skinny shoulders, and he squeezed him firmly, his nose squashing into Jehan's face close to his ear.

“Hey mec,” he murmured happily.

“Privet, Vladya” he greeted Vlad. He knew that in spite of his Russian name and family, Vlad didn't speak much, but Tatya seemed to think he needed all the encouragement possible in this regard, and it was a toss up between Russian and English, and being together with this many of them made it feel like a Club of Tongues meeting, which probably meant having as many languages flying about the place as possible. He put an arm around Vlad, giving him a quick side hug because meeting Vlad for about five minutes was long enough for anyone to get the fact that he was a huggy person too.

“I wait for you,” he explained, returning his attention to Jehan and leading them to the fire's edge and to Tatya. “I think it easier to find if one of us stays in the same place. But it is good you do not think the same,” he laughed. “And then while I am waiting, Tatya finds me, and you finded Vlad?” he added, slightly questioningly. “And now we can have un bonne fire,” he added with a wink, pretty sure Jehan's levels of French were up to getting that pun without explaining. They would have fire words, and fire poems, and roast marshmallows... But he found that all of that could wait. He didn't want to start peppering Jehan with questions, or filling his brain up. He just wanted to enjoy them all being here. He wanted to pull all of them into a huge hug and not have to let go again. He settled for draping an arm across Jehan's shoulders.

“I am just telling Tatya... Sonora is so nice. I have so nice friends,” he made a gesture that encompassed all of them and beyond, “Everything here... it is good.”

OOC 'mec' is literally 'guy' but is an affectionate/informal way to greet a good friend. I would assume it's either Tatya or Jehan's turn, as it was in each half of this thread before it merged, though I suspect there won't be too much more on this either way.

13 Dorian But I would not choose to be without- JEEEEEHAAAAAN 1401 Dorian 0 5

Parker Fitzgerald

January 30, 2018 2:24 PM

The beginning of a new one! by Parker Fitzgerald

Parker had always loved fire. The warmth, the crackle, the way that it would slowly turn branches or paper into smoke that would rise up. He also found it shockingly peaceful. When he was home for the holidays he would often find himself looking into the fire at his parents house, letting his mind wander. He also felt like this event was made for him as it was on the Quidditch Pitch. Though his last outing had not been fun, and he winced a bit whenever he thought of how his ribs felt after the game, he had still found he loved the game.

So as he looked around at all the other students going to get food and enjoying themselves, he smiled with the thought that this was where he belonged. This was his tribe.

Then out of the crowd Cleo broke through and linked her arm through his. Parker laughed at how excited she seemed as she pulled him to the food.

"Food sounds good."

Parker had liked getting to know Cleo this year. She had been a welcomed break from some of the cold shoulders of the other students and she loved being outside as much if not more than him. She didn't seem to like fire as much as he did, then again, nor did she like to play Quidditch. Either way they had had fun with exploring.

Cleo stopped midsentence, she looked so sad and Parker almost wanted to reach out to her and let her know it was all going to be ok, but the opposite of how most of their conversations went, Parker didn't get a chance to respond.

Parker didn't know what to do with the information Cleo was throwing at him. Of course they'd still hang out. He might even do a bit better in a few of his classes cause he wouldn't be sitting there planning things with Cleo. In others, like Herbology, he assumed he'd do a bit worse.

Parker smiled at Cleo, "No worries. You couldn't get rid of me if you tried. You're the nicest person to me, plus, who else will make the Labyrinth map with me? I'm still new to this whole magic thing, and I'm gonna need help from someone smart like you."

Parker wasn't just saying that. He meant it through and through. From what he had seen Cleo was one of the smartest people he'd met that was his age and she was humble about it, which as his mother always said, meant it was likely to grow instead of shrink. Parker knew there was a lot in the world he didn't know let alone understand, but he knew being friends with smart people was always the best move. It didn't hurt that she was fun to be around.

"Come on, I'm hungry," Parker said this time pulling Cleo towards the food.

41 Parker Fitzgerald The beginning of a new one! 1402 Parker Fitzgerald 0 5